


Poems About Godzilla

by spaceowl



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angels Aren't Real, Cecil Is Weird, Coca-Cola Has A Culture, Gen, Radio, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 20:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceowl/pseuds/spaceowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Carlos stepped into the miniature city, it looked like a model train village.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poems About Godzilla

**Author's Note:**

> Co-Authored By Archbishopmelker

When Carlos stepped into the miniature city, it looked like a model train village. Perfect, tiny, without any pesky connections to the outside world; small paved roads traveled from residential neighbourhoods to offices and shops and then back again in a traffic circle that, if he had wanted to, Carlos could have easily walked around. He would be able to make his way back in the same time it took to walk from Josie's car lot to the bowling alley itself.

The bright, tiny lights in the knee-high city were all lit up now, including several spotights that poured from the windows of the little city hall, and Carlos could hear small, echoing voices coming up to him, but he had yet to see any of the citizens re-emerge from where they had fled. He looked back up.

"See?" he called to the crowd five, maybe ten feet above him. They were crowded around, peering down at him, squinting at the sudden change in perspective. "It's just a very small city! Not a war-mongering super-city. Look at them!"

As the man on the radio in the bowling alley went on to say something about every child in Night Vale mysteriously vanishing, Carlos decided he really wanted to know when "miniature city" had become a relief, and not yet another bafflement. He was about to ask Teddy and the rest of them to come down, to maybe collect some cars or lawn gnomes for later testing, but tiny spotlights were flicking to point at him now and they all just gasped, pointed. Carlos turned to look--

Tiny screams welled up from beneath him, were _silenced_ , and then tiny cannons were pointed at him from building roofs far below.

Carlos turned to look where his foot had landed when he had gone to turn around for a better view of the city. Lifting his foot, he felt an untold horror settle itself in the pit of his stomach at the scene beneath it.

"The mayor!" cried a hundred voices. "Oh, our mayor, dear mayor!"

"Murderer!" cried a hundred more. "Vandal! War-monger!"

Carlos tried to explain, to tell them he hadn't thought to _look_ for a podium. He hadn't even thought to look for _people_. The man was quoting the City Council, and Carlos raised his hands to block the incoming storm. Above the tiny screams below and the larger screams above he could still hear the radio playing over the speakers in the bowling alley above, and he really didn't want to die listening to Cecil overextolling his virtues.

He'd had enough of that.

***

"...It is, of course, a completely objective fact that Carlos is like the sun. And so, like that shining, ever-watchful eye, you dasn't look at him for an extended period of time. Unless, listeners, you want your own shining eyes to curl in upon themselves and to weep profusely. This, of course, works out perfectly, as our dearest and most darling of outsiders can't bear to look at me for too long either. Albeit, I've come to accept that this constant severance of any eye contact may be for entirely different reasons. However! Our compatibility has been empirically, unequivocally proven by the naked truth that, when our eyes _do_ meet, it's for the exact same amount of time. Oh, _Carlos_ \--"

"Oh, Jesus," said Carlos, and he turned off the car radio. He would have been less inclined to force himself to listen for this long, but after a few months Carlos had come to the horrified conclusion that WTNV really was the only station in town.

Rest assured, he had tested this hypothesis rigorously, on numerous occasions. Up on the roof, angling the antenna in every direction-- "--ers, you'll never guess what Carlos--" Soldering iron, baling wire-- "--Speaking of hair, on a much less disgusting note--"

_Rigorously._

Once, _once_ , he thought he had finally found another! Suddenly Buddy Holly, those glottal stops unmistakeable, though faint with static: _Oh Boy!_ playing thinly from the speakers.Oh boy, thought Carlos, and moved his hands carefully away from the radio, making note of the antenna's exact orientation, the number point number number on the dial, oh boy--

_Stars appear and shadows are falling_

_You can hear my heart a-calling_

The song was more...dirgelike...than he remembered, but still, thank God, he thought, thank God--

\--and then there was just static.

And then from out of the static that soothing voice emerged, getting gradually louder and clearer. "The head was found a short distance from the scene, but the body is still unaccounted for. You know, speaking of bodies--"

Carlos sighed, and contemplated just turning the damn thing _off_ , but then again Father Flanagan's Weeping and Blasphemy Hour would be on in a few. _That_ show, he had to admit, had rather grown on him.

Funny to think that driving here out of the waste so hazily long ago he had not been at all averse to hearing that voice, that first welcome sign of civilization fading in as the sun set red, that voice calmly relaying alarming news, reassuringly reciting ominous admonitions, offering oddly intimate and intensely odd asides that had nothing to do with him. He had not yet entered the city, and he could hardly wait to do so, and the voice spoke to him as though they two were alone, and spoke of weird wonders aching to be rationally explained.

Ah, the optimism of one who had yet to learn that every single citizen of said city thought that _historical archives_ were "a particularly foofy salad ingredient".

(They were really good on pizza, though, lightly grilled)

The high hopes of a man who could never have imagined that the phrase "internet access" could be met with such utter incomprehension by so many prospective landlords. He'd felt like a tourist without a phrase book. "Access to the internet?" In certain respects it seemed as though back in the day some stray atomic bomb had struck dead centre First and Main, and left only the unburnt silhouette of 1962 intact forever in the toxic ash.

"Why would you want that?" the old woman had asked. Not _what is_ that, so--

"For information."

The look she'd given him, he'd have been better off just saying porn. "That's what the radio's for," she'd said, and the angel at her shoulder had nodded in solemn agreement.

He'd reluctantly taken the room, and its radio. It was getting late, and he really didn't want to go back to that motel. He'd drifted off listening to that voice in the dark gently and ever so sincerely praise some stranger's hair.

The next day, he had called a town meeting. It had gone...strangely.

The next day, Cecil had looked at him. And Cecil had smiled.

Oh boy.

***

Bleeding profusely now, Carlos sought an escape from the relentless assault of the miniature militia, but with more concern for where he stepped than he'd had when he entered, so it was slower going, and the missiles kept coming.

"My brave Carlos," the voice from above enthused, recounting the events of several minutes past as though he had been present for them, as was his tendency. Recounting the triumphant descent. The revelation. That guy doing that stuff sounded pretty cool, Carlos thought dizzily.

He reached a small housing development surrounding a rather seedy-looking shopping mall out in the light industrial area before he fell, helpless not to, flattening rows of townhouses, hoping they'd had the foresight to evacuate. A minute, paint-flaking tricycle lay overturned before his left eye when he turned his face to the side.

"'Behold,' said Carlos--"

"I did _not_ ," Carlos gurgled.

"We have nothing to fear..."

That, on the other hand, sounded like something he quite easily might have said. That cool idiot in the story on the radio, boldly stomping in. Carlos laughed bitterly, or tried to. In practice, he just gurgled again.

***

"I was just buying new shoes at the Woolworths-- you know the one, listeners, with the coldly humid, shadowed corners, and the consistently reasonable prices? Well, my shoes were well and truly beyond repair after a certain sandstorm, as it is virtually _impossible_ to remove such excessively cakey entrails and deep-set blood stains from penny loafers. I knew it was finally time to summon a clerk and pay The Toll, and thankfully I had just received several irradiated rabbit skulls from Old Woman Josie, who had told me a week before, shoving the sack of them into my hands, that I looked like a ward of the state with those shoes. So, to Josie, a warm thank you; those really are the toughest ingredient to get on short notice! Anyway, you will never _guess_ which intrepid scientist I-- Oh. Another time, dear listeners, as Intern Layla has just handed me an update concerning second street's new double crossroads..."

Carlos remembered that day. He had been testing foods in some storage areas of the abandoned -- _semi_ -abandoned -- department store downtown, trying to get some kind of answer to whether _all_ foodstuffs in Night Vale were classified "probiotic". Surely Coca-Cola couldn't _possibly_ have an active culture.

(turned out it did. It had blasted through its cave-painting period in record time and was now well into the Jazz Age)

Deep in the depths of the Woolworths, semi-abandoned, Carlos had been careful, keeping his back to the stacks and stacks of inexplicably warm Flaky-O's crates, but still somehow some _thing_ had managed to appear from the darkness just behind Carlos' shoulder and whisper, into his ear, "our listeners want to know why we can't feel the earthquakes."

Carlos had twitched away so violently that some more faint-hearted citizens might have classified it a jump, but suffice to say in Night Vale those citizens would not have lasted long enough to comment. He stammered out a few garbled protests, dropping his pH reader as he stumbled forward and turned around to face... Cecil. He sighed, and grabbed his pH reader back up, along with a few nitrile gloves.

Cecil leaned forward, and watched in adoring fascination. "Your shirt fits very nicely, Carlos. Did you buy it here? I didn't think you knew the ritual yet," he said, his bright warm approval pouring out, even through the darkness.

Carlos grimaced. "I'll look at the graphs I've drawn up at home later, Cecil. If I find out, I can send some information to the station to be reported."

"Oh," Cecil said. He leaned back, straighter, as Carlos stood up again with his reader safely in hand. Cecil paused to look at it, and then smiled. "Yes. That would be so very, very kind of you, Carlos."

Nodding, Carlos put his equipment back in his bag. He stepped back, regarding Cecil. "Okay. Well... I'm going to go."

"You're finished with your ever-fascinating research of, uh, cereal crates?" Cecil asked, vaguely gesturing at the surrounding food crates.

"For today, yes," Carlos said. He shifted his bag on his shoulder as Cecil looked at him. "I was studying the organic matter in the older foods, but I have enough now. Are you here for some reason?"

"Ohh, just new loafers," Cecil said. "After a pretty traumatic trans-dimensional experience, goodness only knows I could use a replacement." He cheerfully held up a bag that was somehow both glowing _and_ dripping, some black ichorous...no, red. Definitely red.

Carlos tried not to look _too_ horrified. "Right. Well, I'll see you around, Cecil?"

"Mhm," Cecil said, and he nodded excitedly.

Carlos exited the building quickly, and tried to ignore the vibrating chant that started up behind him. Another time, he promised himself. You'll figure it out another time.

***

"Angels aren't real," the radio told them sternly. The words echoed from all sides of the cavern.

 _They're not_ , Carlos concurred, staring up into the unreachable light of the bowling alley. _Not even the one that hogs the bathroom every damn morning._ Angels and hollow clocks and--tiny people (screaming)--they were all just phenomena he had yet to understand.

***

As everyone knows, scientists are terrible gossips, so it should have come as no surprise when, during one of their communications re: Carlos' progress in explaining absolutely everything, Professor Naidu mentioned with diamond-tipped nonchalance that she hoped he was managing to maintain the dispassionate objectivity that is vital to scientific advancement, despite any extracurricular interactions with certain of the locals.

Carlos sighed heavily. "Don't worry. I'm maintaining my dispassion just fine."

"Really." She sounded just as surprised as reassured (apparently what remained of the team had reached a consensus that they were "a cute couple").

"I'm not, see, I'm not saying that there's anything _wrong_ with him, I'm just saying there's something... not right?" Carlos said, trying his best to sound casual, and observant.

"I'm not sure I understand," the Professor said.

"Here," Carlos said. He put his phone on speaker and flicked over to his photo gallery. "One contact photo is worth a thousand multisyllabic adjectives."

After the photo was sent, there was a long, long pause.

"Oh," she said. "I see. You went for... coffee?"

"Coffee _only_ ," Carlos stressed. "In public." Not that public spaces were ever really safe in Night Vale. The meeting had taken place at the Midnight All-Night Diner -- he remembers thinking how the coffee in Night Vale was just black enough to show how slick the surface was, shiny with an oily sheen, while still not black enough to act as any sort of reliable mirror.

Carlos had ignored the way Cecil smiled down at his cup bashfully. In all honesty, Carlos had ignored Cecil as much as was possible.

***

"Oh," said the voice on the radio, sadly.

Oh.

***

Carlos needed the Mayor's phone number. He had to have her permission to send a team into the Dog Park and she was being _extremely_ slippery about giving it up, or even acknowledging that there was a dog park he needed access to. He thought, well, if Cecil really, _really_ quote-unquote "loved" him, he'd be happy to help him out by giving Carlos the Mayor's phone number. Even though, as he had learned by asking Cecil previously, it was a crime punishable by what Cecil would only describe, shuddering, as "The Leeches". When pressed for clarification, Cecil had politely declined (just as he had declined to provide the needed number). "After all, Carlos," he had said, "you need your beauty sleep. We wouldn't want to disturb your schedule with sudden spasming nightmares in the middle of _every night_."

But Carlos did _really_ need that number, and this even meant that Cecil would be able to spend time around Carlos, an activity he apparently really, _really_ enjoyed, to judge from his previous joy when Carlos popped by the station to alert the citizens that there would be an impending blood shower. "That's not really news," Cecil had said. "But, I'm glad you stopped by. If any other occurrences occur, you can feel free to drop by and tell me. Even at my home! Do you want my address?"

Carlos had looked nonplussed. "No, that's all right, I'm sure I'll be able to reach you here if I have to." There had never been a point where Carlos had come by the station and Cecil hadn't been there. He was actually kind of surprised to hear Cecil even _had_ a home; on some level, he had thought Cecil went off the air when the station did, singing the Star Spangled Banner just a little off-key and then emitting a soothing hum for the remainder of the night.

But the revelation had got Carlos wondering if--hoping that--Cecil might be more forthcoming when out of the workplace. So now they were having coffee, having what Cecil had broadcast to the entire town as a date, and Carlos still didn't actually have the number in his hands.

"I like your...um...I like your new shoes," he said.

Cecil looked at the coffee, and Cecil smiled.

***

In the end, Carlos thought, a clock is a device for measuring or indicating time. If you point out an absence of gears--or an unevenness of time--and say "that's not a clock"...well, it _could_ be you just haven't really thought it through.

In the end, Carlos thought, the most alarming part was that his last regrets wouldn't only be that he hadn't died with his PhD clutched in his bloody fingers. They wouldn't only be that he hadn't died _after_ making some modicum of sense out of Night Vale. After everything, he could hear that smooth and steady voice that had been haunting his every footstep since he came to Night Vale, that ever-present, never-ceasing voice that had always been a testimony to Cecil's unflappable and ever-accepting demeanor, and he could hear it cracking on the radio in the bowling alley upstairs.

Carlos, bleeding to death under the pin retrieval area, listened to Cecil fumble on air for the mic, his breath hitching just before the radio cut to a public service announcement.

 _I can't die with the last thoughts running through my head being "Christ, what an asshole I am,"_ Carlos thought desperately, as a line of miniature tanks crested the hill at his feet--

And then the Apache Tracker appeared out of the red haze that was slowly eclipsing his vision.

"Are you going to feast on my flesh?" Carlos said, words a bit garbled where his face met the crushed shadows of tiny houses.

"Nyet," the Apache Tracker said. He grabbed Carlos and lifted him into a close, clutched carry; the artillery around their ankles began firing.

"<I'm sorry,>" Carlos slurred sadly to him in Russian that, while some would consider it flawless, was distinctly flawed. But that could have just been the sucking chest wound. "<Cecil, I just can't think of you that way. It's like,>" he coughed, "<Romeo and... apples? And...eyes. So many eyes. Like _potatoes_. >"

"<Oh, for fuck's sake,>" said the Apache Tracker -- in Russian, of course.

***

When Carlos stepped out of the bowling alley, the lights of Night Vale had all flickered to life. He had tried to find out, before, how the electrical grid managed to run without any apparent connection to an outside source of power. It was, supposedly, from the fake wind farm. A "greener source" of fake energy.

Before, he had wanted to turn off each separate grid, one at a time, to try to find out what would happen. Now, he was mostly just glad he could see well enough to make it through the parking lot to his car.

It was a terrifying thought, honestly, how many lights were still blinking in Night Vale. They were coming through the coal dust, a silent testament to the people that called the town home. The town, with paved roads that travel from homes to jobs and back without a thought to the outside world. Carlos could probably, maybe, walk a circle around the town, but it would take quite a while. Ten hours? What was the perimeter of Night Vale? It definitely was a non euclidean shape, he... It would take a damn long time. He stopped at his car and opened the door.

One bright red light blinked ceaselessly from the top of the highest tower on the edge of town, and Carlos slumped heavily into his car. There were so many things to study in Night Vale, so many strange and malevolent forces to understand and, of course, to _fear_ , but the excitement that had been slowly turning into terror over this past year was now slowly settling in, as a sort of apprehensive fondness.

Gently coagulating blood was making the shirt Teddy had handed him stick tackily to his skin every time he moved his torso or lifted his arms, but at least it wasn't bullet-riddled. He turned the key in the ignition.

"...and the news that the city is, in fact, only a _miniature_ city, ten feet down," Cecil's voice on the radio said as the car rumbled to life. "Well, that was startling as well."

Carlos hastily typed out a message, the words less important than the meaning as Cecil began to say good night to his beloved Night Vale. The news of the Apache Tracker shook through him as he pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the sparsely lit street. Carlos took off towards the big, hideous red hat at the edge of town, and he turned off the radio entirely.

 


End file.
